


The Lemurian Star (1625, Georges Batroc)

by plutosrose



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020 [14]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: "He's a Ghost Story", Alternate Universe - FBI, Art Theft, Blow Jobs, How to Get Fired, M/M, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:53:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27428221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose
Summary: “Are you here to talk about the case?”“You mean my case,” James fixed him with a stern glare. “It’s not your case.”Steve blinked at him. “What the hell are you talking about? It’s in my department, Fury assigned it to me...”James shook his head. “You don’t know shit about HYDRA. I do. So yeah, it’s my case.”-Steve gets assigned a wild goose chase of an art theft case with infamous fellow agent James Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882291
Comments: 2
Kudos: 88
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	The Lemurian Star (1625, Georges Batroc)

The Lemurian Star was an explosion of color and power, not unlike any of Pollock’s work, thought to be the artist’s interpretation of a dying star. It was thought to have been painted by the reclusive 17th century French painter Georges Batroc, of which there wasn’t anything about him really known for certain other than he had once lived in Marseille. Steve supposed that the uncertainty about the painter’s biography added something to the mystique around the painting, which had been missing for more than 90 years. 

Of course, the moment that he’d been assigned the case, Natasha had thought it was hilarious. 

“I think Fury’s trying to get you back for calling him out in last week’s meeting,” she said over lunch that day.

It was true that he may or may not have pissed off his boss by announcing to a room full of Fury’s direct reports that their plan to pull back support for their sources in the OsCorp case to help them keep their cover was going to end in disaster. Fury, in turn, seemed to have turned into stone at his remark and reminded him that this wasn’t his case, and that he was only there to provide background on some of the stolen art that was rumored to be in OsCorp’s holdings. 

He had, for a moment thought about going to the press about it (even going so far as to get Peter Parker’s business card), but the safety of their sources was infinitely more important than getting back at Fury for making a stupid decision. 

Fury must have known on some level that he’d considered it, however, because he’d been assigned the biggest dud of a case in the agency’s history. There were practically no leads, other than it was thought to have been stolen by the infamous HYDRA gang in the late 1920s from the home of a marquis in the French countryside. 

After a long moment, Steve cleared his throat. Natasha was looking at him so expectantly it was like she had the ability to read minds.

“I still don’t know how you know about that, we’re not even in the same department,” he eyed her curiously. He’d been an agent for five years now, and frankly, he had no clue which department Natasha worked in for sure. She seemed to belong everywhere and nowhere all at once. Frankly, if someone told him that she didn’t actually work there at all and had simply been blending in the entire time he’d been at the agency, he would have believed them. 

Natasha, for her part, simply shrugged. “I have eyes and ears everywhere, Rogers,” she grinned, showing off far too many teeth. 

“You scare me sometimes.”

Natasha just laughed and reached over to pat him on the shoulder. “I heard they’re giving you Barnes, too. For the ‘investigation.’” 

The color drained out of Steve’s face almost immediately. “What?”

-

To put it simply, James Barnes was a mystery. 

Within the first week that Steve had worked at the agency, he’d heard no less than six different rumors about him. 

1) James Barnes was the Cold War Soviet assassin known as the Winter Soldier, who to this day, was still on the FBI’s Most Wanted List (Natasha had laughed until she’d cried when he’d told her this one). 

2) The reason that James Barnes worked on the violent crime team was because he once had been part of HYDRA, and had been recruited by the FBI because he’d agreed to give up their secrets.

3) James Barnes was the bastard son of President Ellis, which is why no one remembered him from the Academy. (Steve had helpfully pointed out to Clint that Matthew Ellis was only 47, and therefore, it was improbable that James could be old enough to be at the agency and also be Ellis’s son). 

4) James Barnes had made millions investing in Stark Industries when it was just a start-up, (Sam had told him this one, and when Steve had asked why James would still be an agent if he had all that money, Sam had shrugged and claimed since he spent more than half his time out in the field, he was probably some kind of adrenaline junkie). 

Which, could be said for him and most of the agents that he knew, Steve thought. He needed more than one hand to count the number of times that he’d been bungee-jumping. 

5) James Barnes was Sokovian royalty. (A week later, that had been Clint’s second attempt at hazing him, and Steve had pointed out that Sokovia hadn’t had a royal family since 1885.) 

6) There wasn’t anyone at the agency called James Barnes–he was nothing more than a ghost story that was told to new agents to keep them awake when they were pulling all-nighters (Natasha had told him this one with a straight face, and frankly, he’d actually believed this one for almost a month). 

And now, James was going to be working on the same case as him. His same, stupid wild goose of a chase. 

\--

Even though The Lemurian Star might have been a wild goose chase, it took Steve approximately one day to feel territorial over his wild goose chase. What did someone from violent crimes have to do with an art theft? There was no definitive proof that HYDRA had ever been involved, other than the painting had been stolen once in the 1920s. Everyone involved in the theft was definitely dead, and who the hell knew if the painting had remained in HYDRA’s hands since then? 

HYDRA, which by the way, was something of a ghost story now. Was James some kind of expert in ghost stories? 

But maybe, Steve thought as he sat down to lunch in the agency’s cafeteria, watching James from a distance, that he shouldn’t have been so judgmental. Maybe, with James’s help, they would finally be able to put this case to bed. Fury would certainly learn a thing or too about trying to get revenge on him if that happened. 

Steve nearly jumped out of his seat when he realized that James had slid into the seat opposite him. 

“Holy hell, you can’t just sneak up on someone like that,” Steve huffed out, an errant thought about steel-blue eyes floating through his mind. James raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’ve been staring at me for the past 10 minutes. If you didn’t see me coming, you should maybe turn in your badge.” 

Steve narrowed his eyes at him. “I saw you fine.”

“Right.”

“Are you here to talk about the case?”

“You mean my case,” James fixed him with a stern glare. “It’s not your case.” 

Steve blinked at him. “What the hell are you talking about? It’s in my department, Fury assigned it to me...” 

James shook his head. “You don’t know shit about HYDRA. I do. So yeah, it’s my case.” 

Steve wasn’t sure how to react, frankly, and the first sound that came out of him was laughter. “The fuck is wrong with you? HYDRA bribing you or something? Is that why you don’t want me on the case?”

Those steel-blue eyes turned incredibly cold. 

“I don’t think you should work on the case because you’re out of your depth,” James damn near growled, leaning forward like he was about to pounce. “I don’t want to hear shit about me and HYDRA in the same sentence again, got it?”

Steve’s narrowed his eyes at him. “Got it.”

-

Steve had, in fact, not gotten it.

The last thing he was going to do was drop the case. Looking through records quickly became a 12-hour-a-day task–as predicted, there wasn’t a lot of information. He lost a lot of sleep, and started coming in to work before dawn and leaving after dark. 

There was nothing. He was chasing ghosts. 

That was, until he stumbled upon the name Arnim Zola.

-

Zola had worked with Schmidt in the 1940s. He was from Switzerland originally, but had found favor in the German branch of HYDRA for some, Steve hesitated, although there really wasn’t any other way to describe it–mad science experiments. 

Zola came to the United States in 1952. Operation Paperclip. Steve wrinkled his nose at the thought, but this sent him down a rabbit hole of more records--newspaper clippings and asset seizures and arrest warrants--until he found testimony from Timothy Dugan, an agent at the FBI in the early 1950s, who had suggested that Zola had HYDRA connections.

Dugan was fired shortly after.

Steve had read through Dugan’s testimony at 2:35 in the morning, laughing himself stupid, because here was some proof that the people he was looking for might have actually existed. 

However, his moment of victory was short-lived. The records on HYDRA after the 1950s were infuriatingly incomplete. He knew there was a section on the FBI’s website about HYDRA, but that was about it. Unless...

He pulled up a catalogue of all recent tips that had been made about HYDRA. Typically, these weren’t seen that seriously, but maybe there was a clue here that he could work with.

It only took falling asleep on the keyboard of his computer five nights in a row (sue him, he wasn’t used to being in the office until 3am) before he found something. 

-

Renata (last name redacted), had worked for Alexander Piece, Ellis’s Secretary of State, for a number of years before she had suddenly quit, claiming that she had proof that Pierce had HYDRA connections. 

The most striking part of her testimony was the fact that she claimed that there was stolen art in Pierce’s possession that he was looking to sell on the black market. 

“Why didn’t anyone press her on this?” Steve asked Natasha, poking the file indignantly.

“Probably didn’t seem worth it,” Natasha shrugged and picked up the file to leaf through. “When’s the last time you actually slept?”

“Irrelvant,” Steve huffed.

“You apologize to Barnes yet?” 

Steve blinked at her, mind weighed down from such a lack of sleep that he had to think about who she was talking about. Once it came to him, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t have anything to apologize for. This is my case, I am just doing my job, and hell, I might even find this painting, no thanks to him!”

Natasha snorted. “So three days ago, huh?”

Steve blinked at her before he realized what she was talking about. “So what,” he huffed, snatching the file back. “I can sleep when I’ve found the painting.” 

“Right,” Natasha rolled her eyes.

-  
Another week passed, and this time, a small-time gangster--Brock Rumlow--had been brought in for questioning, and, as it turned out, happened to name Alexander Pierce as his boss and claim that the painting was going to be sold some time the next week. 

Of course, when Steve had gotten his hands on Rumlow’s testimony, he’d become wide-eyed, hopeful, and damn near incessant that he be allowed to question him. “He’s probably just trying to avoid extra time,” Natasha had supplied. “I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

But if Natasha was wrong, they only had a limited amount of time to find the painting. This was the biggest breakthrough yet. He had half a mind to camp outside Alexander Pierce’s home in Kalorama by himself for the next week, 24/7 if he had to. 

But, because James Barnes’s name was still on the case file, he sent him a memo about his plan of action. Let it not be said that Steven Grant Rogers didn’t care about protocol when it suited him. 

\--

Steve took a deep breath as he glanced down at the address for Alexander Pierce’s home. He could barely look directly at it without his heart pounding in his chest. It was exhilarating to know that a case that no one had come close to solving was within his grasp. 

The moment ended, however, when the door to the passenger’s side opened. Steve narrowed his eyes at James. 

“You didn’t have to come,” Steve huffed as James got into the passenger’s seat. 

“Yes, I did. My name’s on the case file too.”

“Right,” Steve grumbled as he started the car. “I’ve been the only one doing fuck all for this case.” 

As he backed out of the spot, he could feel James glaring at the side of his head. “You seriously think you’re the only one who’s been working on this case?”

“What was I supposed to think?” Steve grumbled again, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were beginning to turn white. “The only time we’ve spoken, up until this very moment, you told me I should stop working on the case. Frankly, you’re lucky I didn’t go to Fury.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know James, why do people say cryptic as shit things about cases other people are working on? Because frankly, you still haven’t answered that one, and I’m losing my patience.”

“Huh,” James snorted. “You, having patience. That’s funny.” 

“I have plenty of patience,” Steve snapped, clenching his jaw tightly. James just snorted again and shook his head. “Besides, you don’t even know me. I could be more patient than Mother Teresa, and you would never know.” 

James was full-on laughing by the time they pulled out onto E Street. “Oh my God, you’re worse than Natasha told me you were.”

Steve blinked. For some reason, the knowledge that Natasha and James had been talking about him made his brain a little bit fuzzy. Or maybe that was just the sleep deprivation. It was hard to tell. 

“And what did Natasha say?”

James smirked at him, which made Steve’s stomach swoop uncomfortably. “She said that you’re probably the best and worst agent that the FBI has ever had. But you’re really just a stubborn asshole, aren’t you?”

Steve kept his eyes firmly focused on the road, but man if he didn’t want to glare at him. “Just trying to do my job.” 

James rolled his eyes. “Right, because I’ve never done mine.”

“I’m the one who spent the past two months reading records from whenever the fuck,” Steve grumbled, flushing with anger.

“I interrogated Rumlow,” James said--and the blasé tone made Steve simultaneously more and less angry.

“You did? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because you know fuck all about interrogating people like Rumlow?” he could feel that same glare boring into him again. “Because you know shit about what HYDRA does to people they catch?” 

“The rumor about the electrocutions?” HYDRA might have been a ghost story, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard things. But, he’d definitely thought Clint was trying to fuck with him when he mentioned electrocutions and brainwashed assassins. 

“Yeah, not a rumor,” James huffed. 

Steve eyed him curiously for a moment. He did not have the brain power to even begin to unpack what James was implying at the moment. “Do you have a personal stake in this or something?” 

“Really? You just asked me that?” James didn’t look mad, but he didn’t look especially pleased either. “And you wonder why I didn’t want to let you in the interrogation room.”

Steve sighed.

It was going to be a long night. 

-

“I’m so bored,” James whined. It had been at least an hour and half of sitting in a dark parked car as far from Pierce’s house as they could justify. Steve, for his part, was so tired that he was resting his head on the steering wheel.

“Read the case file or something.”

“I was thinking we could play twenty questions.”

“I’m an open book, ask whatever you want.”

“Boring.”

“We’re probably going to be here for a while,” Steve murmured, lifting his head to see more of the lights going out in Pierce’s home. “Case file might be good reading material for you. Pass the time.” 

“I mean I could do that,” James murmured, shifting closer. “Or I could just blow you.”

Steve was pretty certain that all of the color had drained out of his face. He was definitely completely awake now. 

James was attractive, but he was also something of a douchey stranger. But that also didn’t mean that he didn’t think he had gorgeous eyes or soft-looking hair or wasn’t super athletic--

“We’ll miss something important,” Steve squeaked. James grinned, wide and toothy, and Steve wondered briefly if it was possible to pass out from arousal. 

“Yeah, probably not,” James shrugged. “If Pierce really is HYDRA, then there’s no way that he’s going to move the painting while we’re sitting here. He’s not that stupid.   
“Besides,” that glint of mischief in James’s eyes was dangerous, Steve knew it, “be good for our cover if someone notices that we’re here.” 

James’s hands felt incredibly warm on his thighs, and when he actually reached down to unbutton his pants, Steve vaguely thought that he might pass out. 

James reached between them, and pulled Steve’s cock out--a shiver of arousal went up his spine, and for a moment, Steve felt like all of the air had left his lungs. 

When James actually took his cock into his mouth, Steve let out an embarrassingly high-pitched whine. 

He tried, oh, he really tried, to keep his eyes focused on Pierce’s massive house and security gate, because there was no way that he would ever forgive himself for missing something important in the case of a lifetime while getting head from his stupidly hot and mysterious coworker.

But fuck, if it wasn’t hard.

Pun intended.

James flicked his tongue over the head of his cock and reached out to stroke him, which made Steve’s entire body shudder. 

“I’m going to come,” Steve murmured, and frankly, he had expected James to pull off, but this just made James begin sucking him down with abandon, swallowing around him until he came apart and had already started to judge himself for hooking up with a coworker. 

James grinned at him, making a show of wiping his mouth. “Yeah, you definitely did that.” 

“You are awful.”

“Not really,” James shrugged. “Just a little lonely and kind of sick of my boss. If you think Fury is bad, you should spend a week with Sitwell.” 

Steve frowned, grip easing up on the steering wheel for the first time in what felt like hours. Or days. Christ, he needed sleep. “I’ve heard a lot of rumors about you, you know?”

His heart was hammering in his chest--he wasn’t sure why he’d brought that up, but James, for his part, just looked amused by the idea. “Yeah, what was your favorite one?”

Steve thought about it for a moment. “Probably the one that you’re secretly Sokovian royalty.” 

“Prince James has got a certain ring to it,” James nodded to himself. 

“Any of those rumors actually true?”

For a moment, James looked almost mad at him. Steve’s grip on the steering wheel tightened again. 

“No,” James said, though Steve couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not. “Besides, even if one was, I wouldn’t tell you. Have to keep up my reputation.” 

“But,” James said after a moment’s pause. “If you wanted to ask me out, I wouldn’t say no.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You are really confusing, you know that?” 

But fuck, it had been a while, not since Sharon had told him over text that while the sex was great, he was about as emotionally available as a brick wall. Pft. Whatever that meant. 

“But yeah, uh, I’d like to take you out sometime. When we’re not both working.”

“Smooth as hell Rogers,” James chuckled, before shifting a bit closer. 

“If you blow me again I might actually die,” Steve laughed nervously. 

James laughed again and patted him on the shoulder, before shifting back to lean against the window.

“Oh, Bucky.”

“Huh?”

“You can call me Bucky. It’s what my friends call me.”

“We friends now?” 

Bucky reached over and pressed a finger to his lips. Steve turned beet red, relieved they were sitting in a completely dark car. “We can be.” 

“I can’t believe you blew me on official FBI business,” Steve huffed, before Bucky pressed his finger more firmly against his lips.

“Shush.” 

Arousal pooled in his belly immediately. It was too soon for him to be completely hard again, but Bucky’s fingers were already dancing perilously close to the waistband of his pants. 

“You’re interesting, Rogers, I’ll give you that.”

And this, Steve decided as he squeezed his eyes shut, was probably how he was going to go, being jerked off by James “Bucky” Barnes, an FBI agent so mysterious that no one seemed to know anything about him.

But honestly?

He’d take it.


End file.
